Juneau leads Southeast Alaska swim championships

There was quite a commotion going on at the Augustus Brown Swimming Pool on Saturday for the Mike Smithers Southeast Alaska Swimming Championships.

More than 100 Juneau athletes ages 7-18 celebrated with friends and family as they went up against swimmers from Haines, Sitka, Petersburg, Craig and Ketchikan.

Through the first two days of the three-day event, Juneau's Glacier Swim Club boys and girls teams held huge leads. The GSC girls amassed 578 points after two days while Ketchikan sat in second place with 242 points.

In the boys competition, Juneau led with 417 points.

"The kids have really pulled together to support each other here this weekend," GSC coach Scott Griffith said.

While team support helped put a lot of distance between them and their challengers, individual GSC swimmers Jimmie Bush, Rochelle Roldan, Jonah Swanson, Dakota Isaak, and Trevor Jones qualified for a sectional meet in Federal Way, Wash., next month. Sectionals feature the top talent from the Pacific Northwest.

As well as qualifying for out-of-state meets, the GSC rewrote several records this weekend. Cody Brunette set a championship meet record in the boys' 15-and-over 200-yard butterfly, while Isaak, 10, put in the fastest time in GSC history for her age group by swimming the 50 butterfly in 32.09 seconds.

"It feels good to be a record holder," Isaak said.

She also broke the championship meet 50 freestyle record with a time of 28.71.

Juneau proved outstanding in the relay events as well. The GSC team set other championship meet records as the girls won the 15-and-older 400 freestyle and the 13- to14-year-old boys churned up new bests in the 200 medley relay and 400 freestyle relay.

Breaking records wasn't just for the local swimmers, though, as Petersburg's Abel Aulbach set regional and championship-meet records in the boys 10-and-under 50 freestyle with a time of 28.33.

The meet concludes at 9 a.m. today at the Augustus Brown Swimming Pool.